Like Mother, Like Daughter

Many years ago before I was married, I went with my family to visit my grandparents. We were sitting in their basement having a pleasant visit when my Grandma invited us to go upstairs and partake of her amazing homemade rolls. I went upstairs and opened the fridge which is where she said she had put the butter. The first thing I noticed was a great big tub of Country Crock butter. I carelessly grabbed the tub by the lip of the lid. To my surprise, the tub was heavier than I anticipated and the entire tub minus the lid (which I still held) dropped to the floor. Imagine my further surprise when I saw an explosion of red sauce all over my Grandma's kitchen. That big tub of Country Crock was really full of spaghetti sauce, but now it was empty and spaghetti sauce was EVERYWHERE, including dripping down from the ceiling.

My little sister came up the stairs at that point and her little jaw dropped. There was her much older, wiser 19 year old sister in the middle of the biggest mess she'd ever seen. I stood there for a moment in total shock. As that wore off, terror set in. I knew this wasn't something I could take care of on my own -- I needed reinforcements. I told Eliza to run down and tell Mom I needed her. She obediently ran downstairs and "whispered" loudly, "Mom, Ange spilled spaghetti sauce all over the ceiling!"

Two seconds later, the whole family was standing in the kitchen in stunned silence. Finally, someone broke the silence. It was Grandma, and she was laughing. Not just chuckling to spare me further humiliation. She was downright laughing -- hard. I can't tell you how grateful I was for her reaction. I knew she wasn't the type to pitch a fit and get angry over spilled milk, so to speak, but I didn't know she would laugh harder than I'd ever seen her do before.

We all cleaned up the mess as we laughed although I think Grandma and Grandpa discovered sauce for quite sometime thereafter.

Why am I writing about that you ask? Well, I'll tell you. Last night I was rushing around trying to get dinner ready and everything situated so I could go to a meeting. I put dinner in the oven, showered and got ready and made it back to the kitchen just before the oven timer went off. Pleased that I was a few minutes ahead of schedule, I decided to delight my kids with a pitcher of kool-aid. I finished making the drink, pulled dinner out of the oven, and called the kids to come and eat. Anna was the first to come and was thrilled to see the kool-aid. I walked out of the kitchen to put a rag in the laundry room and walked back in just in time to see Anna drop the pitcher onto the floor. Red kool-aid was EVERYWHERE -- her, the floor, the ceiling, the cabinets. Horror and irritation flashed through me and then...the laughter. I laughed and laughed as Anna cried. She was covered in red stickiness and still a little stunned. I cleaned it up and comforted Anna by telling her my spaghetti sauce story. We both laughed.